Thread
by Azure Butterfly
Summary: A duo of mages travel across Cyrodiil in search of arcane knowledge. They find more than they bargained for when the Emperor is murdered and the barrier between Nirn and Oblivion begins to collapse. The two must discover where they fit into some divine plan before the thread of fate is irreversibly destroyed. (Follows main quest very loosely.)
1. Chapter 1

_**Thread**_

Chapter One

* * *

The Imperial City was lost.

There had been no warning, save the ominous plumes of smoke to the northeast. Before the inky tendrils near Bruma had even diffused, the gates of the Talos Plaza District had fallen. Hoards of Daedra poured through the collapsed gates and swept through the city, taking each sector one-by-on. The first wave consisted mostly of Dremora foot soldiers, with a few Xivilai among their ranks. The second wave hit from the southern end of the archipelago. Mages from the Arcane Academy vainly attempted to repel the Dremora invaders streaming out from the summoning chambers. In the end, they neglected to watch their backs. While they loosed bolts of lightning at the seemingly prone Daedra, Mehrunes Dagon's forces barricaded the doors and prevented the mages from spilling out into the City proper.

The third wave came from the sewers. Long thought to be a weak point in the City's defenses, the start of the Oblivion Crisis had put fortifying the City's underbelly at the bottom of the Legion's priorities. None of that mattered now.

By the time the fourth wave swept over the bridge connecting Weye to the Imperial City, most of the civilians had been transported to the middle floors of White Gold Tower. The uppermost floors lay almost empty: what Legion soldiers remained in the tower manned the doors, the small squadron of Battlemages residing in the tower left to set wards along the Tower's perimeter, and the Emperor's chambers lay empty, as they had for several months. Only the Moth Priests remained, looking out the windows with unseeing eyes. Some of them clutched Elder Scrolls to their chests in a futile attempt to preserve the knowledge contained within. Others sat on the ground and prayed for divine intervention. In the end, they knew it was a futile attempt. They had seen the empty cell, the ruined chapel, the Tower that held no secret. They had always been doomed. They were simply unable to accept it.

The tower would shake every few seconds, like clockwork. At the surface it was a mere earthquake, but the realization set in quickly – they were footsteps. Every being, mortal or Daedra, was at once struck by a sense of pure acknowledgement. The barrier between Oblivion and the mortal plane had been utterly shattered. Mehrunes Dagon Himself walked upon Nirn, unrestrained and uninhibited.

One of the Moth Priestesses stumbled over numbly to a chair carved in the likeness of the Time Dragon. The beige and brown banded moths settled on her silken robes, wings limp. Their glassy eyes focused on the woven silk of their forebears. Though unable to see, the priestess could feel their gaze sweeping across the silk, absorbing the song contained within. Perhaps the moths were readying themselves for a journey, drinking up all the knowledge they could before the end. Even after Tamriel collapsed, perhaps the moths had a job to do. The priestess allowed a small smile to creep across her lips. If nothing else, the memories of the ancient Cyrods still had a chance at survival. Even after all mortal life had been extinguished, their souls would still remain.

A tremendous roar shook the tower.

The windows on the eastern side of the tower shattered inwardly, sending shards of scarlet glass tearing through the floor. Those unlucky enough to be standing near the eastern wall were torn to bloody scraps. Only a few came away unscathed; most of the priests were covered in a mixture of moth wings and blood, not all of it their own.

Only one individual had avoided the attack entirely, by unfurling one of the Scrolls to its full length at just the right time. None of the elderly, wizened Moth Priests would have had the reflexes needed to pull off the maneuver – which only made the uninvited guest in their midst all the more outstanding. The young thief cowered behind the scroll as the cries of the dying and wounded echoed around her and dust, blood, and mortar rained down from the ceiling. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw one of the Ancestor Moths flutter down to rest on her shoulder. And then the Scroll…_ woke up._

The knowledge contained in the Scrolls was too late to be of any help. There was no time to arrange a proper reading and no guarantee the knowledge revealed would be of use. No, the knowledge would most certainly not be of use. Even before the Emperor's assassination, the Scrolls had been unusually forthright about the whole thing.

The Hero was the first to die. The threads of fate unraveled at that point, the catalyst for everything yet to come.

The Throne was next to fall. The thousands of threads connected to this point held it at Inevitability. Only a single thread was absent and it was that which made all the difference.

The Heir was slain quickly, with minimal resistance. The blood of Akatosh spilled within His own temple, a stubborn brown stain that marked the cloth as doomed.

The Tower would fall, and with it the world. What use was there to hold up the sky when the earth was scorched and the rivers ran with blood?

_**The thread of prophecy has been severed.**_

_Within the scroll dancing dancing stars leering out like eyes they see what we cannot the lady sits upon her deathbed the empire takes a final breath_

(The young thief stared into the void before her. The world around her fell into darkness as words from another place assaulted her mind.)

_the dragon waits for us all the serpent uncoils his heart sundered the world itself 'leases a keening wail_

(The Tower lurched. The thief felt it not.)

_resonate with your fill of the world come take in the water and the light the earth and the sky brace yourself against the antithesis and cry out_

(For a brief moment, the whole world flashed brilliant white, and the thief could see the charcoal outline of a Moth Priest praying.)

_pain is love and love is purpose_

(The Tower lurched again. A Moth Priest slid by, headed towards a shattered window. His screams never reached the thief's ears.)

_see the crimson rivulets of your blood and grow see the knife plunged into your back and the burnt flesh _

(The thief was aware of her falling, on some level. Something in the pit of her stomach cried out though her mind refused to act on it, captivated.)

_feel pain and gauge yourself against it grow beyond it grow until you are greater than your enemies_

(The Daedric Prince of Destruction pulled back his many arms and prepared to strike the final blow. Just then, a blinding light flooded out of the upper floors.)

_grow until you are greater than this world I give you pain to show you love_

(Mehrunes Dagon snarled wickedly and plunged a clawed hand into the side of the Tower. His ultimate foe lie within that light – all he had to do was destroy.)

_know love know purpose grow grow _

(And he was very, very good at destroying.)

_grow greater than this world grow greater than myself _

_dearest child brace yourself against the enemy and find _purpose

(The left fist of Dagon was a whirling tempest as it shattered the western walls and sent the Tower crumbling into dust. Arcs of electricity ran along the fractured bits of wood and stone that remained of the Ayleids' crowning achievement.)

_**Return to a previous state to restore the weave of fate, or persist in the doomed world that remains.**_

* * *

Thirty miles west-northwest of Castle Skingrad, a young mage jumped out of bed clutching her chest.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

* * *

_4E 430_

"Kareesh, do we have any alocasia fruit left? We just ran out of lavender and I really don't feel like going into the city to get any more."

A lean, sand-colored cat jumped down from the rafters of the drafty tower. She gave the young woman beside her a bemused gaze before slipping through a crack in the stonework. With that matter settled, the woman returned to the boiling mixture in front of her. A thick, viscous paste made from liquefied fly amanita slowly worked itself into a noxious blue fog. The resulting fog would condense into an equally revolting blue liquid that looked uncannily like Troll saliva. The not-saliva slowly poured over burning peony seeds, hopefully causing the proper reaction to take place.

Kareesh nudged upon the wooden door and slithered into the room. She aggressively brushed up against her charge's leg to announce her presence before clambering up onto the table.

"Tha- wait, this isn't what I asked for!" The alchemist glared at the offending vegetation as though it had knowingly committed a crime just by being there.

The Alfiq hissed in annoyance and puffed out her tail. She batted the aloe leaves towards her companion and pulled herself up to her full height. Unfortunately, her full height was only slightly taller than that of your average housecat, and did little to help remind those around her that she was, in fact, sapient. Her eyes narrowed to thin slits, Kareesh dared the other woman to ignore the reagents.

"These will work too!" The Breton laughed nervously and snatched the leaves up before the Khajiit could scratch her. "Aloe leaves… we had run out of these, I thought. Or did you find a cache somewhere?"

Kareesh rolled her eyes and purred softly. She looked over the alchemy apparatuses, determined that nothing was going to burst into flame, and nodded approvingly. Then she caught sight of a growing stack of parchment piling up beside an inkwell and felt the fire come back into her soul.

The Breton woman was in the process of chopping the aloe leaves into fine bits when the sharp tip of an unopened letter found its way to her gut. For a moment or two Kareesh feared for her life as the thick, tarnished silver alchemy knife slashed through the air at random. Then the Breton lost her grip on the knife, fell to the dusty slate floor, and found herself staring right at the offending letter.

OFFICE OF IMPERIAL COMMERCE

SKINGRAD DIVISION

**NOTE OF TAXATION**

ALENA QUERRUS

ROSEWOOD ESTATE

The Khajiit purred with a mixture of annoyance and relief. Then the alchemy knife found its way to a wooden post not too far from where she was sitting and she decided that, for the time being, it was best to stay aware of her surroundings.

"_Taxes,"_ Alena growled. "_Taxes_ for an abandoned little cottage that could collapse into an Ayleid ruin any day now were I to leave." She made a motion as if to tear open the envelope, only to stop and take a second look at the address on the from. "Rosewood _Estate?_ What, you mean the brambles and Troll-infested caves surrounding this wreck? Or did my parents truly, honestly, name their ramshackle little cottage an _estate_ before they left for greener pastures? An _estate…_One of those shacks next to the Imperial Sewers would be considered an estate before this place!"

Kareesh tilted her head to one side and gave Alena a knowing look. She turned her head to the ceiling and deliberately glanced between the Breton and the surrounding tower.

"I swear, if they're counting the tower as some sort of…_ taxable addition_, I am going to march straight to their offices and _burn them down._ Before I set up the tower there was absolutely nowhere to capture starlight properly unless I sat out in the garden all night. With the _Trolls._ And it's not like they can claim a tax on labor of any kind because I built the whole damn thing myself!"

Kareesh grimaced.

"What's that face for? Oh. _Oh."_ Alena's face fell. "You don't think they're taxing me for the stone, do you? I mean, Talwinque was a good mile away from the quarry. They can't possibly claim the stone there was a protected Ayleid relic!"

The Khajiit curled her tail into something resembling a question mark before striding out of the room.

Alena hastily propped a small ceramic bowl underneath a boiling decanter and shoveled the pile of letters front and center on the desk. Most of them were from relatives, as was to be expected. Her mother had never quite accepted the fact that Alena chose to stay alone in the family's ancient little summer home rather than move with them to the Imperial City. Piles upon piles of letters bore her mother's loopy script, some of them postmarked all in a single day. Last week had been an exceptionally prolific time of penmanship – a dozen or so letters bore dates ranging from Midyear 14th to 21st. At the top of the pile, an envelope stamped with today's date, Midyear 23rd, looked as though it had been written mere hours ago. Alena was surprised when she drew a finger across the parchment and her finger came away unmarked.

A rather ugly and somewhat odd smelling envelope caught her eye when she fanned the letters out over the desk. A set of deliberate, blocky letters gave the return address as Charwych, High Rock and Alena finally recognized the envelope as the type of deerskin pouch favored by the local coven. Her grandmother was probably wishing her a belated birthday (almost two months after the fact) or her aunt was sending her price quotes on Daedric summoning. Either way, she'd make a point of looking at it later.

Another tax note joined its brother on the ground, revealing a bright purple envelope sealed with golden wax. Alena scrambled to tear open the letter, the embossed butterfly symbol on the front sending waves of anxiety crashing over her. Gods, she hoped this wasn't an old letter. Then again, if it were a _new _letter that just meant more trouble headed her way anyway. A thankfully plain piece of paper fell out of the envelope, and the small, steady lettering helped settle her nerves.

"_Respectable envoy Querrus,"_ the letter began. _"This letter is to remind you that our Lord's allocated summoning day falls on the 2__nd__ of Sun's Dawn. Liability for any summonings held on dates other than the above falls solely to the summoner herself."_ ('Herself' was half-heartedly crossed out, and a caret pointed to the word '_themself'_ printed in the margins.) _"In addition,"_ the letter continued, _"please keep in mind our Lord's innumerable duties and refrain from summoning Him for the purpose of 'literary review.'"_ The letter was signed with an elaborate, yet unreadable signature that appeared to start with the letter H. Alena delicately set it aside, feeling relieved. The last time a letter had arrived from the Shivering Isles, it had requested (instructed) her to invite a rather ornery lich to a gala in Mania. Two weeks and one dead lich later, Sheogorath appeared to have forgotten the whole thing. (A lucky break indeed.)

The ceramic bowl was almost full of hissing purple liquid now. Alena dumped a cupful of charred peony seeds into the bowl and distractedly smashed the contents with a wooden spoon as she skimmed over her taxes. Thankfully, whoever had inspected the cottage had shared Alena's point of view, and taxed it as the tiny, unstable little building it was rather than the 'estate' it had been listed as.

_Only 200 Septims, _she mused, _so I'll have enough to buy more parchment the next time I'm in town. Another couple months and I might have enough to make a trip to Leyawiin. Be nice to see the shrine ag-_

A terrible, piercing shriek suddenly came from the surrounding woods. The east, what was to the east? There was an old, crumbly fort that way, but the only things that lived in it were skeletons. Alena doubted skeletons could raise such a ruckus, even if they were the reanimated kind.

She set the spoon on top of the bowl, extinguished the mage's fire crackling under her instruments, and pulled the bamboo curtains over the windows. That had been a human scream, she was sure of it, and there was no way she was going to wait in her tower while werewolves or necromancers ran through _her _woods. It would be a lie to say she knew the woods 'like the back of her hand' – after all, she spent most of her days studying magic under Kareesh's cautious eye – but she knew all the main paths well enough to find her way in the dark.

A quick peek through the bamboo slats confirmed the sun was setting, Magnus' Egress rapidly descending below the horizon. If she left now, chances were she secure the perimeter before it became too dark to see.

Just then, Alena became aware of two bright green eyes leering at her from the doorway. She panicked and was about to throw a jet of flame at the intruder when Kareesh walked out of the shadows with an annoyed look on her face.

"_Are you really considering going after whatever made that noise?"_ her gaze seemed to ask. _"You do realize that running _towards_ ungodly noises runs perpendicular to logical though, yes?"_

The Breton frowned. "It's probably just skeletons. Mom used to tell me how the ones in the Illiac Bay liked to scrape their shields along the walls to scare off travelers. These skeletons probably do the same. You don't suppose skeletons ever have skeleton get-togethers, do you?" Alena continued to blurt out half-hearted excuses about skeletons as she threw on a traveling cloak and slung a leather satchel over her shoulder. "Some skeletons are actually quite pleasant. I met a skeleton near Highcross once who wanted to become a violinist. Of course, nobody would hire a skeleton, and the people who saw him playing always ran away instead of giving him tips, so-"

Kareesh leapt onto the woman's shoulders, tail bristling. The beginnings of a Silence spell were already visible in her eyes.

"All right, all right!" Her voice trailed off. Kareesh extinguished the Light spells glowing in the nearby sconces and the two made their way down the tower's narrow staircase. At the front door Alena put a good portion of her magicka reserves into a Lock spell, then telekinetically barred the door for good measure.

The forest outside was unusually quiet, and a thick smoke permeated the air. At first the two mages assumed the worst. Forest fires were entirely too common during the summer months, when young mages would sneak into the woods and cast unsupervised spells. After a few moments though, Kareesh let out a low, threatening growl and jumped into the branches of a nearby oak.

"It's Daedric, isn't it?" Alena murmured. "The air feels like a storm is coming, but your blood feels wrong too. Do you remember that one time I mistook your Moon Sugar for salt and all the meat we ate for a month gave me heart palpitations? It's just like that."

"_Fadomai dek j'rein,"_ Kareesh agreed. (At least, Alena thought she agreed. Sometimes she had trouble distinguishing oddly-accented Ta'agra from ordinary growls.)

As the duo made their way down the dimly-lit path, the smoke became more pervasive and a terrible stench began to waft through the trees. The stench started off sickeningly sweet but quickly became sour enough to cause your eyes to water. Layered underneath it all was the sickly stench of blood – fresh blood, to be more exact.

"It's from one of Sanguine's realms," Alena whispered. She wasn't entirely sure the Khajiit could hear her, but she continued anyway. "I'd know if it was Sheogorath, but the back of my mind is too still for his influence to be present. Not that it matters anyway. The smell alone makes me feel ill. I'll probably wake up with a hangover in the morning."

A twig snapped off the side of the path, prompting Alena and Kareesh to fire off simultaneous bolts of lightning in the offending direction. A terrible curdled cry rang out for just a moment before abruptly cutting off. The white-hot light given off allowed the two a momentary view of something large, pink, and vaguely humanoid, confirming their suspicions. Some sort of summoning had just taken place, and given the time between the loud screams and the present, the summoning had been quite a large one.

"There's a portal up ahead," Alena said, matter-of-factly. The hairs on her arms stood straight up and the blood flowing to her hands felt ice-cold. She could practically taste the Void ahead, all burnt metal and salt. "There are about a half-dozen daedra still here, but I can't sense any human life. Gods, I think someone completely fucked up the summoning."

Kareesh leapt out of the bushes without warning, claws alight with crackling energy. The Dremora on the path ahead had mere seconds to realize something was coming his way before the Alfiq's claws buried themselves in his eyes. While not the worst thing Alena had ever witnessed, it sure came close. Kareesh spent the next five minutes darting ahead and pausing to lick the inky blood off her paws and torso.

The scattered daedra, despite their alien airs, did not appear particularly violent. A small blessing when more seemed to pop up every minute, each sending Kareesh into a bloodletting frenzy. Alena couldn't help feeling sorry for the humanoid daedra, knowing that they were sapient and likely just taking the opportunity to see Nirn for themselves. But as they traveled further east, the smell of blood became ever stronger and the daedra seemed less and less innocent as unidentifiable bits of flesh began to litter the path.

A half-shattered blue bottle finally offered some insight into the night's events. Alena ran a finger along the inside of the container and licked the solution that remained. Immediately she could feel the results. Her pulse quickened and a red haze fogged the edges of her vision. She hastily shoveled a handful of lime-colored dust into her mouth before the Frenzy magics reached the lower levels of her mind. (The bergamot zest unfortunately proved less than effective at dispelling the potion's terrible aftertaste. It seemed as though the potion had been primarily wine, with sour lumps of Troll fat mixed in.)

"I feel like I'm back in Mania for one of Thadon's terrible performances," Alena growled. She took a moment to reflect on that and eventually decided that even if the evening ended with her untimely death, at least she hadn't gone out watching a Wood Elf prance about in tights. It helped raise her spirits, but only a little.

Kareesh suddenly landed on the path just ahead. Her tail was bristling and fire danced in her footprints. Alena wisely decided that now would be a good time to stop talking and start listening, knowing that her hired bodyguard and teacher had few keener senses than her own.

The sky lit up with a tremendous bolt of lightning, and Alena could make out the faint outline of an enormous statue up ahead. She suddenly became aware of just how dark it was and wondered how long they had been walking down the path. If her suspicions were correct and the statue she had just seen was the shrine devoted to Sanguine, that meant they had been walking for a good forty minutes. Another bolt of lightning and a pained cry shook her out of her thoughts and into the present moment. Someone was still fighting.

She vaulted over the roadside shrubbery and rolled into the fall. Kareesh was probably following, but Alena trusted her to manage on her own. Very carefully, the young Breton crawled along the dewy ground on her hands and knees, squinting in an attempt to make out the source of the fighting. She made a quick mental note to practice Night Eye when she made it back home (shoving aside the voice in the back of her head telling her _if_ she made it home) and formed a small, dull Magelight. Not that it helped any – the light made it no easier to see the surrounding area and cast a sickly glow across the forest.

The light did, however, catch the attention of the three Dremora fighting in front of the otherworldly shrine.

Alena rolled to her feet, narrowly avoiding a head-on shot from a Dremora fireball. Kareesh pounced onto the Dremora's face and started to bite every inch she could reach, but that still left two Dremora unaccounted for. Alena attempted to form a ball of electricity in her hands, only for a few weak sparks to fly out. Making the Magelight had depleted the rest of her magicka reserves and there was little chance of it regenerating quickly enough for a proper fight.

An Ayleid well, if she could just find enough energy to tear through the liminal barrier and call a Golden Saint through then the Dremora would be evenly matched, but where how she find an Ayleid well when it was dark out and the hillsides were full of Trolls…

The Dremora Kareesh had attacked fell to his knees, clutching his bloodied face. The other two took this as their cue to stop analyzing the two newcomers and start killing them. Alena could feel herself screaming, more out of rage and powerlessness than fear, but the sound seemed to stop before reaching her ears. If this was the way she ended up dying, she'd never hear the end of it. Worst of all, if she died to a bunch of second-rate, intoxicated lesser daedra, Sheogorath was likely to banish her to some isolated corner of the Isles out of embarrassment. The thought of disappointing her patron was more offensive than the thought of dying, and for a moment Alena felt she could banish the remaining daedra through rage alone.

Before she had the chance, a wall of lightning erupted from the ground and ensnared the attacking Dremora. Their howls of pain were barely audible over a definitively human roar. A gnarled staff slammed into the taller of the two, eliciting more cries. As a second burst of electricity rolled over the Dremora, Alena finally got a good look at her rescuer. A young man in wine-red robes and with a matching red-tinged face hit the Dremora with everything he had, to the point that Alena thought his staff would simply snap in two. His hair was matted down with blood, and judging by the lacerations on his face and arms he had been fighting for quite a while.

The two Dremora fell over dead, but the man continued attacking them with the same ferocity. A few meters away, Kareesh turned her attention to this newcomer, suddenly aware that the threat was not yet over with. Her fangs sunk into his shoulder but the man hardly seemed to feel it. His eyes belonged to the Dremora alone. In a panic, Alena rummaged through her bag, shuffling through the potions she had intended to sell in town the next day. Upon hearing the clinking of glass the man whirled around, his attention suddenly dedicated to the bottles alone.

Time seemed to stop. The air was thick as mud and the young alchemist could barely move a muscle. All sound ceased. The man's eyes were no longer human – they glowed with an internal light and draconic hunger. His mouth curled back in a snarl.

Without warning, Alena felt a deep, rhythmic pulse through the soles of her feet and heard a voice ring out in her head.

"_Don't bother thinking. Do it."_

The man leapt at her, staff in hand, only for a thin bottle of yellow liquid to crash into the side of his face. As his world was blotted out, he felt dimly aware of a distant heartbeat.


End file.
